Wheat being sold at Rs1,800/40kg despite no support price

ISLAMABAD - No use of government’s decision of not increasing wheat support price for farmers as the wheat flour price already has reached Rs 50 per kilogram in the market that means wheat is being sold at a price of Rs 1800 per 40 kg or more against the last year’s support price of Rs 1250 per 40 kg.Despite of forceful demand from the farmers through their representatives, the government did not increase support price of wheat even it was told that the said decision might impact the wheat sowing area thus making the country facing a shortage of the product.Apparently the government took this decision to control the inflation in the country. Though it is a considered view that if the food price increases in any country that is real inflation that hits all and sundry in the society. As per the ground realities, the purpose of aforementioned decision has not been served as the prices of wheat have gone beyond the expectations of anyone. The only impact that is going to surface against the decision of the government is the wheat shortage and furthermore it will be very difficult for the provincial and federal governments to procure wheat from the farmers to maintain strategic reserves. Apparently the policy makers are unable to understand that prices cannot be controlled this way and if they really wanted to maintain food prices in the affordable limits of poor in the country, the only way was to control input cost of the crops that the government is unable to do. Fertilizer prices are continuously rising and only within a period of not more than 3 years they have almost doubled. The same is the case with fuel prices and the government wants to control wheat price without taking into consideration these elements. In the present situation the government has to increase support price on the arrival of new crop if it wanted to buy wheat from the market. But it cannot reverse the loss in terms of lesser wheat sowing in the country and as per an estimate, around 1 million tonnes of wheat will have to be imported to meet the demand of staple food in the country.